As the Trump administration moves to tighten immigration law enforcement and knock down so-called “Sanctuary” policies in Illinois and elsewhere, Democrats in Chicago and Springfield have indicated they will move to increase the ability of the Cook County Public Defender’s office, which is constitutionally tasked with representing indigent individuals in criminal courts, to also represent illegal immigrants facing deportation procedures.
Last week, the Illinois state House of Representatives’ Immigration and Human Rights Committee voted along party lines to advance new legislation that would explicitly authorize the Cook County Public Defender’s Immigration Unit to represent immigrants with “ties to the county” facing deportation procedures in immigration courts both within Cook County and perhaps anywhere else in the U.S.
That state legislation would follow on a resolution passed by the Cook County Board in early February that similarly gave the Public Defender’s office the authority to expand the mission of its Immigration Unit. That measure passed 17-1, with the county board’s lone Republican, Commissioner Sean Morrison, opposed.
